Friday, November 29, 2013

I saw Jesus rise from the water at Venice Beach, surfboard in hand. Everything seemed cool for him since the resurrection. It was all an easy glide now that the hard part was over. I biked past him smiling, feeling only the wind and the sun. Women clothed in water and bikinis glided through the sand. I headed towards them and towards Malibu. All I could think of was the queen of my heart. The way she smiles at me. The way her smile brings me joy. Her body, like an ancient statue, sculpted to perfection, lean muscle and smooth flesh, skin like roses. My love, my great love. She is my Artemis, roaming through the sand volleyball in hand. I see her up ahead. I'll stop. We'll go together and make love.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The results are in and we have reelected our president, Barack Obama. Every four years, our political process affirms the greatness of our nation: change is decided upon (or decided against) not through violence and bloodshed, but through debate, discussion and voting. Our republic has stood for 236 years on the greatness of our citizenry's engagement in the electoral lifeblood of our system.

I interviewed several people today at two different polling locations. I will write about this shortly. For now, I will say that I was touched by the pride, joy and passion that these people expressed as they took part in the democratic process. America is healthy and strong.

I expected the president to win comfortably in the electoral college. He did. I expected him to win by slim margins in the battleground states. This occurred. However, I thought that the Republicans would contest the results in states where the president's margin of victory was slim. They did not. This is to their credit. Peaceful acceptance of the electoral process is the soul of our nation.

I think that President Obama will win the Electoral College vote by a comfortable margin overall, but by a slim margin in the battleground states. Because of that, I expect votes in those states to be contested by the Republicans. As such, we will probably not have a final verdict on the election for a few weeks.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Look at the above image. What do you see? Notice anything awry? Most people don't. Most people see precisely what they expect to see.

Now look again.

Aha!

You see it, yet you hadn't at first. You had been conditioned to see things a certain way. What is fact and what is perception and how are they distinguished? How much of what we believe we know is simply a function of what we know we want to believe? We live with this conundrum every day of our lives, but most of us choose not to question it because it's easier that way. What is more, we never stop to think of how it impacts all that we see and do-- everything from the choice of a lover...

to the choice of a president.

The magician knows this about the human mind and exploits it every time.

So does the politician.

This is the central issue that I have chosen to explore. I feel its effect every day-- those vast, multifarious and conflicting impressions that shape the interactions of our world. It is my belief that we live in a Looking-glass World: most of what we perceive is the opposite of what it truly is. Those they tell you are heroes are often villains, but in a world of media saturation, where image is king, we are wowed by charm, swayed by beauty.Twas ever thus, I know. However, the world is a much smaller place and the impact of such misperception is greater and wider than it has ever been.

This is just an introductory thought. Perceive it as you will. We're all through the looking-glass anyway.

Friday, January 20, 2012

The hunger seems relentless. The smell of the hunt. It keeps coming. But I tell you this: The Beast of Seven and Ten will be stopped.

This is cosmic assault, plain and simple. It is a violation of spiritual law. The Beast of Seven and Ten will pay the price.

It is the nature of the corporeal existence of the human soul to navigate our relationships with the transcendent forces of the universe. For some, life is simple and the path is smooth. They engage with the better class of spirit in the better neighborhoods of For others, it's a cosmic street fights and some of those supposedly genteel higher powers are nothing but two-bit thugs. The Beast of Seven and Ten is one of 'em. He doesn't understand reason or fairness-- he only understands a poke in the chops, because that's what he wants: The Cosmic Street Fight.

Don't give it to him.

The Beast of Seven and Ten is a bully. He is strengthened by fear-- your fear-- and when he has you frightened, he's won. He feeds not only on your fear, but on your hatred and anger. Give him none. Outsmart him rather than outpunch him. Be of the moment. Be serene and strong.

Here is the secret: he's an evil magician, but once you know that his tricks are simple illusions, once you've mastered the magic of your own, you can triumph. Use your own magic while you keep a loving heart.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

The scriptures say Love is patient. I say it's insistent. It demands and commands; it never asks politely. The arrow flies to your heart without warning, you get hit, you bleed. You lay there in a pool of passion. Not your choice.

The scriptures say Love is kind. I've found it brutal and confounding. A pugilistic conundrum and no title on the line. Styles make fights, This opponent, Love, can always break your defense. The smart money is against you the moment you step into the ring.

And yet you do.

For Love is mysterious, wondrous, comforting. What I'd love to show you, what I've seen, what things to which my mind wanders when driving down a dark highway in the desert night amid the crumbling ruins of the city called Syren Sea. The fading sun paints a burgundy sky as songs whisper on the radio their tales found wildness, soft madness and secret tender solitude shared.

I tell you to love, love deeply, love fearlessly, freely and unconditionally. If you could do one thing, and one thing only now, it should be to love with reckless abandon.

Dismiss the Socratic dialogue in your head, the contrary responses of others: softness, weakness, sinfulness. To the last, to love is no sin, love is the breath of God keeping us alive.

About Me

Mottos And Such

"O for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention."-- Shakespeare, Henry V

"Listen, there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go."-- e. e. cummings

Quadratic Invocation

Beloved, I’ve tried to write this many times. Even now I can barely think of how to start or where to go, save for the fact that now I’ve lived these stories fully and completely. I have become a character that I created and my stories have become fact in the strange way that things like that happen in life.

I will keep this as a journal, a blog, for you, beloved, because you understand and because were there.You saw what it was all about, what it is: The political sorcerers leading mystery cults, the alchemist businessmen sleeping on beds of silver and gold, greed and delusion, the journalistic magi casting spells of falsehood with image and world.They run this place.We know it. And we know it's bull, but everyone still pretends it's fine and lines up at the well of madness for a drink 'cause they say they like the flavor. I don't care what they say.We have to do something.If we are silent to insanity, we give it credence.

We must find the discriminant to discover its roots, rational or irrational, real or imaginary.No magician can alter the mathematical truth of life itself.Only God has that power.

I have nothing to hold me back now, baby.I have nothing to lose.When their lunacy killed, Cristo, my feline son, my life was altered forever.Some people find it ridiculous that his death hurt me that deeply.I don't care.The natives of this land, whose blood flows through me, say the Great Spirit above gives us each an animal totem who speaks to our souls.That was Cristo-- but he was more than that.He was the son of my heart.So, now, I will try to put away childish things and leave my creations as an inheritance for his soul.And when he comes to me now, little Cristo, talking in my dreams, and on the winds of the night when I call to him upon the stars, I will have something of value to give him.Our souls travel together, as they always have and always will.

And your soul is with me too, beloved.Your soul is my soul.Forget the poetry and philosophy and all that.Nobody seems to care about it anymore, I know.Just remember, as flesh in flesh we were one, so are we now, one in spirit always.

So sing in me, Daughter of Truth and Beauty, that my words may echo through spirits and thoughts.For all we have is faith, hope and love, and love is the greatest of all.

But you know me, baby, I will wield that love like a sword.

Let us slit the veil now and show them the world:

Syren Sea

You wind down out of the desert just outside Joshua Tree with the taste of dry air and dust in your mouth and the scent of orange blossoms in your head.You drive past the wind-whipped sand and the rows of date trees straight out of The Thousand and One Nights and find yourself along a barren highway stretch where the only things you see are fenced-in tracts of empty land.Your mind whirls chromesthesially from the shouting of the desert flower and you swear you hallucinate when to the side you see a vast ocean and smell the salt in the air.The vision is too immense for a mirage—Ocean water stretching for miles here amid the desert.As you drive further you come upon a sign that beckons you to follow a cosmic road:

“Welcome to the SyrenSea”

SyrenSea, California, is an oasis that rises wicked and inscrutable from the farthest corner of a near-endless desert. The desert rolls effortlessly, until it tumbles and falls, abrupt and heedless, into an emerald-green ocean. The ocean breeze wraps her inhabitants in a veil of lethargic bliss that lends itself best to idle pleasure and shameless indulgence. Though the climate is parched, the city is watered copiously and blooms abundant with all manner of flora and fauna. The palm trees sway in the hot breezes and the animals mate with abandon. There are ripe fruits and there is rich soil.

The guardians of SyrenSea are careful to maintain her image. They invest in her growth so that she devours more and more of the sand which surrounds her—without ever gaining a pound. Movies and gambling are her great loves. There are plenty of strip clubs, but nary a church. You feel like you need a forklift here just to send up a prayer.

When the sun sets and nighttime reveals its mystery, the lights of the city are unleashed like a plague of phosphorescent locusts and the rattle and ring of slot machines burst forth in a sinister buzz.

This is the draw, the excitement of this place. People come. They never stop coming. They come with portfolios of dreams that they invest in the dust and wind.

So it was that I fell into this place many years ago when I left New York.Back then, my soul was filled with artistry and my eyes hungered for pleasure.Now the world has emptied both of their wonder. I freeze in the hot sun wondering where the time went.

This is where we shall begin.Sit with me awhile.We've got stuff to talk about.